Trump on Saturday took to Twitter and, in a series of tweets, said, "Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action?"
The ironic thing about all of this is that Trump also knew about Russia's role well prior to November 8th and has been pushing his administration and fellow Republicans to ease the sanctions Obama put in place to penalize Russian Federation at the end of December. Did nothing about it. "WHY?" Trump tweeted Friday evening.
A Washington Post report revealed Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself ordered Russian operatives to interfere in the US presidential election between then-candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Former President Barack Obama was reportedly presented with intelligence detailing Putin's direct involvement with Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election in August after the CIA captured what the Post described as "an intelligence bombshell".
The comments seemed to be in reference to a lengthy Washington Post report Friday on the decision-making process behind the Obama administration's response to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
"The point I was trying to make perhaps inelegantly is that when we thought the goal of Russian meddling was to undermine public confidence in our institutions, as opposed to producing a particular outcome, the more we publicized what Russia was trying to do the more we would be doing their work for them, that is further fueling doubt about our electoral system & institutions", he said in an email.
"Given first of all, again, the perception that Russia's main objective was to undermine confidence in the elections, that was really one thing that motivated us to be careful about how we played this in public", Blinken said on CNN.
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For months, Trump has described the U.S. intelligence community's consensus that Russian Federation tried to influence the outcome of the election as "phony", a "total hoax", and a "Democrat excuse".
The White House had said earlier that removing FBI director James Comey from his post might fasten up the agency's investigation into Russian meddling.
"The CIA gave him information on Russian Federation a long time before they even - before the election", he said. "But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people".
The Washington Post said its reports were based on accounts provided by more than three dozen current and former United States officials in senior positions in government, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A senior Trump administration official also said there were no formal plans for Trump and Putin to meet in Hamburg, where the leaders of 20 of the world's richest nations will gather for the yearly conference.
The measure was still in the planning stages when Obama left office and it would be up to President Trump to decide whether to use the capability.
He has criticized the idea that his campaign coordinated or colluded with Russian Federation to win the election as "fake" and a Democratic "hoax" and repeatedly has called congressional, FBI and the special counsel investigations a "witch hunt". To me, in other words, the question is, if he had the information, why didn't he do something about it? Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who sits on the National Security Council, testified that he has not received a classified briefing on Russian election interference.
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